


Happiness in Execution

by still_lycoris



Category: Blake's 7
Genre: Gen, Mind Manipulation, Pre-Series, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-27
Updated: 2014-08-27
Packaged: 2018-02-15 01:16:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,627
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2210166
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/still_lycoris/pseuds/still_lycoris
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Blake will never be one of the Federation's happy puppets.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Happiness in Execution

Blake stared at the ceiling, keeping his face blank and cold. He didn’t want them to know what he was thinking about. Oh, they knew he was in pain, they knew that because they’d caused it. But they didn’t know what was in his mind. He would never give them what was in his mind. That was all he had, all anybody had. He wouldn’t give up. He wouldn’t ever give up. He fought the Federation because they wanted everybody to think they were happy, everyone to be smiling little puppets in a broken world. He wasn’t a puppet. Even though he’d lost, the rebellion would go on. He would die as himself and if that was all he could do, well, that was better than most that slaved under the Federation’s rule.

The door opened. He didn’t turn to look. They would drag him out, take him back to the torture room again for another burst of agony, another round of questions. He braced himself for it. They wouldn’t get anything from him. Nothing.

As he predicted, they grabbed his arms, yanked him out of the cell. Blake stumbled between them, focusing his mind. He was Roj Blake and they would take nothing from him. They would take _nothing_.

They didn’t take him to the interrogation room. They took him to a plain, grey room instead. There was a machine in the middle of it, a plain, grey machine. Blake hadn’t seen it before. He’d seen lots of machines, far too many in the last few days. This one was new. Two people stood beside it in white lab coats.

“Roj Blake.” A woman with blonde hair and a cold, cold smile. “Do you know what this is for?”

He didn’t answer, simply stared at her. The man beside her smiled. The troopers muscled him onto the bed, strapped him down despite his struggles. The woman leaned over him.

“It’s a treatment machine, Blake. For the mind.”

He laughed. They were going to try and brainwash him. He was surprised it had taken them so long. 

“Oh no, Blake.” She seemed to have read his thoughts. “No, we’re not going to do what you think. This is still experimental but the trials are good. You’ll be our first high profile case. We’re going to erase your memories.”

“What?”

The word slipped out involuntarily. The woman smirked.

“Yes. All the little things that are in your way, preventing you from being a good citizen. We’ll burn the links to them, lock them away. You’ll become a good man, a nice, quiet man. A good, happy Federation citizen. Wouldn’t you like that?”

She ignored his screams of rage, went to the back, activated the machine. Blake struggled, screamed and screamed and screamed. His mind. They were stealing his mind, stealing his memories, stealing what made him _him_. They would break him and he wouldn’t even know he was being broken. He had to fight. He _had to fight!_

But he couldn’t fight.

In the end, there was nothing to fight.

*

Blake’s head was hurting.

He wasn’t sure he could remember the last time he’d been without a headache, if he was honest. Perhaps it was all part of his sickness. They said he’d been sick for a while and he supposed they had to be right. The Federation was always right, wasn’t it? Yes, of course it was. They had been very sympathetic, very kind. The painkillers they gave him helped but not enough.

He rubbed his temples. Perhaps it would be better after the trial. The trial seemed to have been going on forever too. So many faces, people staring at him, watching him … the looks in their eyes …

He shuddered. He shouldn’t care about them. The doctors had told him that a little confusion was natural, that these people, these _dissidents_ had led him astray. They’d made him rebel against the government, talked him into actions that he’d never have done otherwise. They’d taken advantage of his sickness, they’d manipulated him into doing terrible, terrible things and they’d made him consider them friends. Of course he was a little conflicted, even though he now knew that the reality was they were terrible, terrible people.

But their faces. They looked so _young_. Some of them looked angry but some of them looked scared. Betrayed, hurt, lost. Surely, surely some of them deserved forgiveness too?

_Renounce!_

No. No, they didn’t deserve forgiveness. They’d chosen this way, this terrible way. They deserved what was going to happen to them. They did. He knew that. He shouldn’t question. He should never question …

His head was hurting so much. Why did it hurt like this? When would he be better?

He heard footsteps and then one of his doctors was bending over him. Blake felt a stab of irrational dislike. He didn’t seem to like any of his doctors, although he wasn’t sure why. The psychoanalyst had suggested it was projection, blaming the doctors for trying to help him even though he knew they were doing the right thing. 

Blake wasn’t sure he liked the psychoanalyst either.

“Blake?” The doctor’s voice was gentle. “Is your head troubling you?”

“Yes,” he muttered, not meeting her eyes.

“It will all be over soon, Blake. I promise. You’re doing the right thing, of course.”

“Of course,” he said, mechanically.

The doctor – he couldn’t seem to remember her name, even though he knew she’d been treating him for a while now – took his pulse with cold fingers, looked into his eyes as though she could see his brain behind them. She shook her head, her blonde hair falling over her face.

“All over soon,” she murmured again. “Just one last proclamation, Blake. Have you practised?”

“Yes.” They’d helped him write out the speech. His illness had made it too hard to do himself. He was lucky to have been so well cared for. He didn’t deserve it, of course. Not after what he’d done …

_– blood and fear and people crying out and the cold of a gun in his hand and someone, an enemy killing them all and he couldn’t save them but he could stop Travis, he could –_

He shook his head, annoyed. He didn’t need half-remembered nightmares, not right now. He needed to focus. He needed to make his speech, praising the Federation’s kindness, explaining what a terrible mistake he’d made. There would be young people watching, people who might have thought he was some kind of hero. He had to stop that. Only he could do it, they’d told him. Only he could put it right, put everything right. He had to put everything right. 

He gave his speech. He gave it with confidence, spoke out powerfully. The words rolled off his tongue easily and he smiled as he spoke of the Federation’s forgiveness, their kindness, apologised for what he had tried to do. He had been lucky. He had been very, very lucky.

“You did very well, Blake.” The doctor again, smiling. “Very well indeed. Does your head hurt?”

“Yes.”

“Come with us. We’ll make it all better.”

They took him to a door, a plain, grey door that Blake suddenly knew led into a plain, grey room that held a plain, grey machine.

“No, I don’t want to.”

“Now, Blake. The treatment is for your own good. It will make you happy.”

“No, I don’t want it! I don’t! Leave me alone! Leave me alone!”

He didn’t know why he was fighting. He didn’t know why he was so afraid. He didn’t want to go in there. He didn’t want to go into the machine again (again? When had he been in it before?) He didn’t want this.

“Please, no!”

They didn’t listen. They carried him to the machine, strapped him in. The doctors stood around him, blank, cold. Uncaring.

“One last treatment, I think. Remove his memory of all of this or he’ll struggle with it and it will all come back.”

“No! _No!_ ”

But they didn’t listen to him.

*

Blake woke, conscious of the fact that he’d been having a very vivid, very unpleasant dream. Sitting up, he rubbed his temples, shaking his head. The dream had already skittered into the nothingness that dreams often went to when you woke and Blake was glad of it. It had been horrible. Horrible and wrong and frightening. No, he was glad that it was gone.

It had disoriented him though. He got out of bed and stared around the apartment, fighting the strange idea that he’d never been here before. That this wasn’t where he lived at all, that this was some strange, new place with strange, new furniture that he had never touched, never used. He wanted to run outside, scream for help, tell people that he’d been kidnapped, that this wasn’t his home – 

But that was madness. He laughed at himself, shaking his head. This was his home, his little flat. That was his couch, that was his vidscreen. When he opened the cupboard, he saw his neatly boxed food cubes, the top box torn open from the other day. His home. He’d lived here since Col and Lu had gone to live on one of the outer plants.

“Roj Blake,” he said, out-loud. “Roj Blake, if you’re not careful, they’ll send you for treatments!”

Shaking his head, he went to shower and dress for the day ahead. It was a simple job, just data analysis. He’d never really wanted to do anything more complicated than that. The Federation needed good people to do the simple jobs too. Everything added up, didn’t it? Everything coming together to make the Federation the well-oiled machine that kept them all safe and happy.

Roj Blake was – and had always been – happy.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for b7friday prompt "Reality"


End file.
